With 10 days until the election, Democrats are warning of threats and Republicans are trying to tamp down rhetoric.
The brutal assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul inside their San Francisco home early Friday morning reverberated across the campaign trail Saturday, with some Democratic campaigns acknowledging increased threats of violence and some Republican campaigns exercising extra caution in their rhetoric.
In recent years, threats of violence against elected officials have increased, with some members of Congress and elected officials purchasing flack jackets, home security systems and other protective measures in recent months. Republican ads targeting Pelosi and other congressional figures have proliferated nationally and trended more violent. In the Arizona GOP Senate primary earlier this year, for example, Jim Lamon aired an ad showing him shooting at actors pretending to be Pelosi, President Joe Biden and Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly.
“Speaker Pelosi and her family in the space of 18 months have now been attacked at her place of work and at her home,” Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss told POLITICO in an interview Saturday. “It is a symptom of an unhealthy political culture. And GOP candidates, in particular, need to be mindful of their rhetoric on election night.”
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Kevin McCarthy-aligned super PAC, mentioned the speaker in at least 29 ads over the past week, according to Democratic strategists tracking the issue.
“The attack is not an isolated event,” Barbara Walter, the political scientist and author of “How Civil Wars Start,” told POLITICO. “It’s part of a rising wave of domestic terror since 2008 — most by members of the radical right — who are targeting opposition leaders, minority groups and federal agents. This is their form of civil war and it is only likely to increase as our democracy remains weak and unstable, and our society deeply divided.”
Pelosi attack rattles an already skittish campaign trail – POLITICO